Junglemonkey
In a perfect world, I'd have a sparkly unicorn rocket pony that shits
frozen margaritas. Instead I have a great family, too many animals, and
a day job that takes up a lot of my brain.
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Today was my last day in the office at the job I've had for the past 5 years. The last time I would make the hour-plus morning commute, the last time I would sit in the uncomfortable chair, the last time I would answer the phone with the headset that always ended up getting caught on the arm of my chair. The last time I would hear my co-workers laughing on their way back from lunch, the last time I would see the message my 10-year-old left on my whiteboard ("I will always love you, Mommy"),...
After the whingeing of my last entry, I wanted to balance things out a bit. Sure, there are things that I miss, but there are some real delighters here as well. So, in the interests of evening the score, here are the things I love about here:
AMAZING CHEESE FOR CHEAP
There are lots of wonderful cheeses to be had in California, sure, but they're not NEARLY as wonderful or as inventive as the ones here. There...
We're at Day 10, or about halfway through our journey now. Tomorrow, we're heading to the Orkneys, and we're looking forward to it. I haven't been able to blog or even upload photos for a couple of days, and I'm reminded of just how spoiled I am in so many ways. You never realize what you take for granted until it's snatched out from under you.
UBIQUITOUS SUPERHIGHWAYS
We drove directly from London to...
This is the first time so far that we've stayed in one place long enough to really do some major sightseeing, and sightsee we did. First we struck out for the east end of town where we happened to pass a kilt shop where we nipped in and got the Pirate all fitted out. His new kilt (which is being custom made because he's not the kind of guy who can wear pret a porter) will be in Mackay Ancient (my clan's tartan), and he got some nice kilt hose and a pair of lovely Ghillie brogues. Our next...
We've been on the road on this vacation, so we've really taken notice of the differences in cars between here and home. Aside from the obvious differences like far fewer SUVs, more Peugeots and Citroens and everyone's driving on the wrong side, the coolest thing is the different kinds of cars from makers we already know.
A great example of this is the...
One thing that I always love about travel is the puzzle of plumbing. Plumbing is normally straight forward - there are knobs and faucets and you twist or pull things and eventually you should get some hot water to squirt on you somehow. But it's the puzzle of just what to twist in what order. It's like breaking a secret code!
Here they have toilets that don't have gravity-fed tanks like they do everyplace in the U.S. The plumbing is all pump-fed, and these pumps were manufactured in...
Last night with nothing better to do, we hopped into a cab at Heathrow and headed for the London Eye. Those of you with any familiarity with London are now cringing at that statement, but we, blissful in our own ignorance, jetlagged, and delirious from lack of sleep and our own bodily fumes, had no qualms and a fistful of currency.
The trip took about about an hour. It was only sixteen miles, but it took about an hour. The whole way, our taxi driver cheerfully answered our...
I'm not a good sleeper, and I'm an even worse napper. Therefore, it should surprise no one that I was unable to sleep a wink on the flight.
On the other hand, I did watch boatloads of the kind of television that most drives the Pirate crazy - pretend science. The kind grounded in actual knowledge-based factlike infonuggets. The kind that uses long words that have magno- and spectro- and infra- in them. House and Cold Case and CSI - if there was science-ology in it, I...
Frankly, the biggest hurdle to vacation for me is the fact that in order to go on a vacation, I invariably end up getting up hours earlier than I would be getting up in my ideal life. We haven't even gotten to the UK yet, and things are looking, well, challenging.
My mother, who had charmed the Southwest agent who checked her into her Los Angeles flight into checking her into her Houston flight on an entirely different airline, found out that that doesn't really work. She got...
By this time tomorrow, I'll be on a flight to London. Once we get there, we hop into a rental car and drive three hours north to York.
In England.
Where they drive on the other side of the road.
In September of last year, Samoa switched from driving on the right to driving on the left. Alcohol was...